Too Real
by The-Cursed-Daughter
Summary: "If you can't take me back to Egypt, then stick this in my chest and I'll find the way back myself." Seto/Bakura


_Second story in the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom. Some lovely antagoshipping._

_There are two Bakura's that I like to write...the crazy, smarmy smartass and the sort of lost one. This story ended up with the second one, but I think it turned out well. My Seto turned out a bit OOC, I think, but oh well. First time writing him. I think this story is pretty good, and I'm glad it turned out to have a plot and not just be some PWP lime-ness. There's just something about the changes in tense that bugs me, but it seems to flow better this way._

**_Warnings/Disclaimers: Swearing, lime, and possibly some canon errors (I'm rewatching the anime and I'm only at Battle City). Teeny tiny mention of Marik/Ryou. YGO franchise belongs to whoever it is it belongs to, but the plot is mine._**

_Also, to clear some stuff up. In my fics, Malik is the hikari, Marik is the yami. It just makes a bit more sense to me._

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><p>"You're rich."<p>

I didn't look up from the line of code. "Obviously. I suppose the fact that I shut down a city to host a dueling competition was lost on you?"

"That means you have money."

This time I did look up—a quick glance, nothing more—at the man who'd made himself so comfortable on the sofa in my office. It had become an almost-tradition eight months ago. The first time, he had stormed in drunk, proclaimed that he had nothing better to do, and fell asleep the antique leather. I dismissed it as a one-off, but the next day he was back.

And the next day.

And the next.

"I'm sure it worked the same way back in Egypt. People who are rich generally have money."

"Oh."

Well, that wasn't the reaction I was expecting. I looked up again, taking a good long appraisal of Bakura. Crazy hair that stuck up in any direction it so pleased, red eyes, lithe figure—nothing new. I had almost returned to my work before something caught my eye. It was _too much_. His hair was _too_ crazy from him running his fingers through it too often. His eyes were _too_ red—bloodshot—and not from drinking all night with Marik and Malik and whoever else he lived with, with deep purple shadows underneath to offset the red. He was too thin to be lithe; emaciated was almost the word I was looking for. He was no longer unkempt in a way that was edgy and sexy—this was someone who couldn't cope with whatever was haunting him.

In eight months, I had never looked at him long enough to see him falling apart.

"Like what you see, priest?"

His voice, dark and low, startled me. I snorted. "What's there to look at?" My eyes narrowed, trying to look angry but knowing that lying to Bakura was a feat nigh impossible. "What do you want?"

Bakura focused on his shoes, his grip tight on one of the armrests. His calves flexed, and I thought he was going to get up and leave.

But then, "Take me back to Egypt."

I knew what he was asking. If he wanted to go to Egypt, he would just pick pockets until he could afford a plane ticket. Or he'd steal a boat. He didn't want to see Egypt as it was now. He wanted to go back three thousand years. He wanted to go back to Kuru Eruna. I didn't realize how harsh the words were until they were out of my mouth. "You know I can't."

There was a long silence, and then he stood, but instead of heading for the door, he stopped in front of my desk and reached for something in his back pocket. I froze—Bakura was not known for being understanding when he didn't get his way—but when he pulled out the knife I was expecting him to have, he offered it to me, hilt-first. I took it, and he said slowly, "If you can't take me back to Egypt, then stick this in my fucking chest and I'll find the way back myself."

I dropped the knife like it was hot. "Are you insane?"

Even his laugh was dead. "I might be. I don't know." His gaze slid past me, out the window. "Don't think I'm stupid—I know my home is nothing but sand now. But I am old in this world. A relic. I do not belong here, and I know this."

"What about Yami?" I realize how stupid it is to point this out to someone who's made it his life's goal to kill the pharaoh. "He has his friendship cult, and he seems to be doing well. You could make a life for yourself. You have those drunken idiots you shack up with, right?"

Suddenly, something in his expression snapped. This man in front of me was wild—his hair, his eyes, his chest that heaved like it was _attacking_ the air in his lungs, forcing it in and out. "Fuck you! _I want to go home!_" His fist closed around my paperweight and he turned, flinging it full-force at the bookshelf by the door. Wood shattered and I winced. "I hate this world! I fucking _hate_ it! I don't want to be in this world, and it's his fucking fault! Don't you dare compare the two of us!" Then just as suddenly, all the rage drained from him and he sank to his knees, far enough away from the desk that I could see him put his head in his hands. "Take me back. I just want to go back. I want to see the stars again." His eyes fixed on mine. "Did you know that? Stuck here, in your office and your company and your mansion, did you know that you can't even see the stars? What kind of world is this?"

Without meaning to, my attitude dial goes straight to 'unadulterated jackass'. "I can't take you back, and you know as much, Bakura. It was fucking stupid of you to come here and ask. I figured Yugi and his friends would sink to something like this, but not you."

I wanted him to get _mad_—crazy and unreasonably pissed. I wanted him to swear and to threaten me with clever words and a pointy object. Because Bakura is rough and rowdy and ruthless and awful and crafty and loud—most of all he is fucking _loud_. But this Bakura is too exhausted to be loud. He's too world-weary to threaten me. It'd be heartbreaking if I cared.

I don't care, right?

He reached across my desk to retrieve his knife, then stepped back and turned on his heel, heading for the door. Startled by his sudden departure, I blurted, "Where are you going now?"

The thief shrugged. "To find Marik. He's always looking for someone to stab." A ghost of a smirk flickered across his face. "When he's not busy 'stabbing' Ryou."

My hand was around his arm before my body realized I was up and before my inner lizard brain could warn me that this was a _REALLY, REALLY BAD IDEA_. Bakura turns, snarling, but he pauses before ripping me to shreds. He gives me this look when I let go of his arm, and there's a long silence as I stand there like a massive dumbass, and then he pulls off his shirt and heads back towards the couch. I'm still standing there, stunned, when he looks over his shoulder at me. "I'll only offer this once, priest. I have nothing else to lose."

"I'm not a priest," I mutter, but I'm right behind him, sinking onto the couch as he straddles me. My coat's off before I know what happened, his long fingers scrabbling at the hem of my shirt, and my world is suddenly dark as he rips it off me and flings it over his shoulder. My fingers grip his hips, _hard_, and he hisses from the pain of it and leans forward, sinking his teeth into my shoulder.

His teeth are fucking _sharp_.

He works his lips up my neck and finally our lips meet. It's nothing I didn't expect, all clashing teeth and dueling tongues. I catch his bottom lip between hard enough to pierce thin skin, and he _moans_ and it's a condensed shot of lust straight to my crotch. Bakura sits back, lips smeared with blood, and leers at me absently, pleased with himself. My fingers fumble with the buckle on his belt—just like Yami, the few times we'd gotten around to this, what _is_ it with ancient spirits and buckles?—and he laughs, deep and throaty. I scowl at him and shove him to his feet, wrenching down his pants and boxers together before yanking him back onto my lap.

He leans close, "Impatient, are we?" and I vaguely growl something at him, and then his hands are slipping into my jeans and I lift my hips so he can pull them off. The thief wraps a hand around me and I throw my head back, groaning, as he starts stroking fast. Through the fuzz in my brain, I manage to shove two fingers towards his face and command, "Suck."

Bakura takes the fingers into his mouth with a grin and goes about showing me just what his mouth is good for, and it's all I can do to yank them out of his mouth. My hand trails down his back, cool against hot skin, to grip his ass and my other hand wraps around him to match his pace on me, and—

And I make the mistake of looking into his eyes.

He's grinning like some blood-smeared, vengeful god, blooming bruises on his neck from where I bit him back, and his hair stands up on end more than before. His eyes are glazed over with fervor and lust...but he's _just not there_. I can try to pretend that I don't see it, but now that I have, it commands all of my attention. Bakura is looking _through_ me, focused on something only he can see—wherever he is, whoever he's with, hasn't existed for three thousand years. I smile grimly; maybe he's imagining he's with me, back when I _was_ a priest.

Suddenly, I can't do this anymore. It's akin to fucking someone drunk. He has no idea what he's doing. My hands rise to his shoulders, push him away. "Stop. We can't do this."

Bakura jerks to a halt, yanked into the present, and I don't miss the stark despair when whatever he was looking at is replaced by office couture. "Why the hell not?" he snarls, his fingernails sinking into the skin of my chest, hard enough to draw blood. They turn to fists and he pounds on my chest. Just as suddenly, he moves to pull away. "Of-fucking-course. What else should I expect from a cruel bastard like you?"

My arms wrap around his back and he's jerked to a halt, shocked. "Let go of me." I don't budge, and hate morphs his face. "Let me go, or I'll maim that pretty face of yours." We glare at each other for a long time, but the anger seems to drain out of him again and he slumps against me, throwing his arms around my neck. "Hate you," he mutters into my skin.

"You're getting blood on my couch."

He laughs, breath hot against my neck. "So what? It's yours."

I wince. He's got a point. The salty sweat on his skin is biting into the cuts on my chest that somehow manage to be bleeding profusely despite their size. Not enough to kill me, but enough to be very annoying. I rest my head against the back of the couch. This must be some kind of dream.

Bakura freezes above me, and I realize that I said it out loud. He peels away from me, his sweaty chest separating from mine loudly, and his eyes are fevered. Hopeful. "Your false—" he stops, licks his chapped lips, starts again, "Your false reality. Mokuba told my hikari about it once, and Ryou told me." His expression makes me sick to my stomach with pity, but I keep it off my face—as dejected as he is now, I have no doubt Bakura would gut me with his fingernails if he felt patronized. "Can it take me home?"

"Yes." Like lexical vomit, it's out of my mouth before my brain can catch up. I try to cover with a gruff, "Sure, whatever."

The spirit is off me like a rocket, towering over me with his unruly hair blocking out the overhead lights that clicked on as the sun set. "Put me in it. I will do whatever you want me to." He reaches for his coat that he'd throw onto the floor when he first walked into the office, and offered me a wallet—not his, I notice as I flip it open. "I can pay you."

Mood shot to hell, I reach for my pants, putting them on before crossing over to my desk and pulling the first aid kit out of one of the drawers. We're quiet as I clean the wounds on my chest and shoulder and slap on some band-aids. The silence gets awkward, and I rub the back of my neck as he collects his clothes from around the room and starts putting them on. "There's a game I had designed a couple years ago, about ancient Egypt. I've been fiddling with it lately—making the pharaoh more like Yami." I laughed. "_Exactly_ like Yami, actually. I built it off of what Malik, Marik, Odion and Ishizu told me. It should be pretty accurate."

Bakura arched an eyebrow. "You talk to Malik and Marik?"

I shrug. "I drink occasionally."

He laughs, and I notice the change in him. He's giddy, deranged almost, but when has he not been deranged? "Where are these pods?"

"At my house," I tell him. "We'll get a quick in my car, and..." His expression makes me stop. "You don't like cars?"

"It is a ton of metal that can move faster than an arrow can fly. Excuse me if I'm not enamored." He slings the Millennium Ring back around his neck. "I prefer my motorcycle." My turn to arch an eyebrow. He shrugs. "The dealership won't miss it."

"How is that any different than a car?"

"It reminds me of my horse." He doesn't say more than that, watching me as I pull on my coat and pack up my laptop. I flick off the lights and Bakura walks out before me as I lock the door. My secretary gives us an odd look—she's used to Bakura making himself at home here, but the sight of the two of us, me disheveled and Bakura bleeding, might be a bit unnerving—but knows better than to say anything. After a brief argument about our method of transportation, that Bakura ends with "It will be my last ride in this world. Indulge me," we decide that I'll go in my car and he'll follow on the bike. It briefly crosses my mind that I'll keep his bike in my garage, just in case he ever wanted to come back to this world.

A short ride later, and we're parking in the garage, taking the inside door into the main house and going downstairs where I keep some of the virtual reality pods—after the fiasco with the Big Five, I figured this technology couldn't be safer anywhere else.

Bakura explores the room while I rummage around for something in another room. His eyes narrow when I come back. "What the fuck?"

I gesture at the stuff in my hands almost redundantly. "It's an IV."

"I didn't fucking ask what it was. I asked what it's doing here."

My expression hardened. "You'll be stuck in a virtual world."

He gets my point without me having to say more. "I didn't sign up for a nursemaid."

"No one asked you," I snapped. "The human body dies without food in about three weeks. I'm assuming you want to be home longer than that. The pouch will be outside the pod, so it won't wake you." He climbs into the pod and I tear open the medical kit, pushing the needle into his skin and hooking it up to the nutrient pouch before suspending it from the pole. The drip starts and I tell him, "I'll change it when it runs out."

He sneers, but his expression is more a cross between surprise and confusion. Turning away from him, I start to load the Egypt game. "I'll add more to the game every once and a while. I'd hate for you to get _bored_," I drawl. He snickers at this, and suddenly, I pause and straighten.

Bakura notices the sudden change. "Kaiba?"

Fuck this. I don't do _feelings_. I _suck_ at feelings. I clear my throat, which is suddenly way too dry. "Would you mind," deep breath, start again, "would you mind if I came to visit you? Only occasionally, though, so don't get your hopes up."

I glance at him, and he smirks. "Oh Ra. Don't go turning my homecoming into a nightmare." The smirk melts into something friendlier, and he looks away. "I would like that," he says quietly, before adding, more like his old self, "But only occasionally."

We're silent again as I finish loading the game and he fingers the IV. I don't have to ask how long he wants me to leave him in there. But even though I haven't said anything, he freezes me with a glare worthy of any wrathful god. "If you _ever_ wake me from this, Seto, you will not live to regret it."

The computer pings to let me know that the game is ready. I walk back over to the pod; fiddling with a few controls as he leans back into the padded chair. My voice comes across quiet, almost reverent as I run my fingers across his wrist, checking the IV again. "What do you want me to tell Ryou?"

Bakura considers this for a moment as he stares up at the ceiling. He smiles at me, but I can tell that he's just the smallest bit scared. Finally, he murmurs, "Tell him I am home. Tell him I am _happy_."

I nod, and suddenly blurt out, "Just so you know, I'll keep your motorcycle here. Rent free," I add, with a smirk. Just as suddenly, I'm flustered—_this_ is why I despise feelings. "Just in case you ever want to come back."

He laughs, sounding more and more like his old self. "I'll keep that in mind, priest."

"I'm not a priest," I grumble and this only makes him laugh more.

Bakura shrugs. "Whatever." Quietly, he adds, "Thank you, Seto."

I bend my head to keep him from seeing me grin. "What was that?"

"Don't make me repeat myself." His voice is surly, but in a good way.

I finish up with the final details and close the visor over his face. Bakura's expression is calm through the blue plastic. "I'm ready."

I backed away as the glass door slid shut, and after making sure the IV wasn't jammed, I pressed the button, the dancing icon on the screen informing me that the program was loading. I could see Bakura's eyes slide shut, and those _feelings_ reared their ugly head long enough for me to murmur, "Welcome home."

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><p><em>Reviews would be wonderful. Thanks for reading!<em>

_Kit_


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